Review Summary: At least they didn't name the album "Never Say Never"…
0 of 1 thought this review was well writtenIt's 2012 & you'd think all those old metalcore trends that's been out in the public's eye (and have been called totally horrible before) since Attack Attack!'s Someday Came Suddenly album that feature dancey interludes, terrible breakdowns, tons of overproduction and ridiculous electronics would be gone by now, wouldn't you? Especially after all the times that it's been shammed on by metalheads and right-in-mind reviewers before that don't have their hair colored five different ways or wear skin-tight jeans.
Well, I hate to be "that guy"… but yeah, getting a deal with Sumerian Records, this cliché of a band, Make Me Famous is the band belonging to none-other than Dennis Shaforostova, yep an original YouTube kid that went under the username "above92" covering all his favorite metalcore songs behind a mic and guitar and this 15-track record is chock full of all those rehashed ideas that you've all heard before. 15-tracks is quite lengthy so you'd have to give them props to the length, and the fact that they're from Ukraine for goodness sake makes this kids quite the spectacle just their music coming amuck to the Asking Alexandria fandom/Warped Tour scene is kind of a letdown being that many of these songs have little creativity and almost half the album blends in with each other.
Opening up with a heavy crusher, "Blind Date 101" (yep, stupid song titles are here too as you would assume) sets the mood into everything that you'd expect, then they actually rehash one of their songs from their Keep This in Your Music Player EP that they had out last year. It's not even a re-recording! It's the exact song taken off that EP and put on the album. I was shocked at the laziness but then again the 15 songs had to have made sense being that the other 2 tracks from the EP are here too plus the band's single for the song "We Know It's Real" that they had out before the end of last year… but that was a promo single so that could be excused.
Things don't really get interesting however, until after the "We Know It's Real" song ends. Thankfully stuff picks up with an almost totally instrumental track titled "In the Shadows of You" where even some blues and thrash metal influence is noticeable containing some great guitar work complete with excellent sweeps and tapping. Proves that these kids have talent, yes, but would it hurt using that guitar wizardry on any of these other 3-minute mark chug-fests?
After that's over, it picks up again with a medicore track (although not quite as bad as the first half of the album) titled "Stage on Fire" and then a kind of mellow song called "She Haunted Me" which in all honesty is not at all a bad song in my opinion. I even hit replay once it was over to give it another go to just let Dennis Shaforostov's high voice backed with lyrics dealing with teenage angst set in. I almost want to say that Shaforostov is the Ukrainian Justin Bieber. I mean you just can't go wrong with that theory! Aside from both of them possessing high voices, they also both made their fame by starting on YouTube covering songs. The irony is almost as crazy and ideal to have this idea that this is what the late 2000s/early 2010s would be like if one were to see that music would come up this way 10 years prior by looking into the future.
Anyway, bottom line is that this debut surely proves that these Eastern European kids can rock hard and do have the talent to surely make themselves famous as their band name implies… but if they can use that ability for other genres of music than just being a typical metalcore cliché, then an even bigger future for the quintet is likely to unfold.
